


Small Favours

by oudeteron



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Ruby & Sapphire & Emerald | Pokemon Ruby Sapphire Emerald Versions
Genre: Established Relationship, Headcanon, Inside jokes, M/M, Meta, Nonbinary Character, Other, originshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:43:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oudeteron/pseuds/oudeteron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven and Wallace share a few enjoyable moments together after a long and exhausting task.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Favours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherrytruck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytruck/gifts).



> Yet another very humble present from me to cherrytruck - you know the drill! x>  
> Also, for those of you who have never caught a Feebas...yes, it really is as horrible as this fic makes it sound. (But still worth it! /runs)

“Keep fishing!” Wallace shouted as he threw yet another disgruntled, wildly thrashing Carvanha back into the waters of Route 119. “It's here somewhere, I know it is!”

Technically, his assumption was correct, but Steven couldn't stop his spirits from sinking just like the random fish they kept disturbing the longer they had spent in this area, scouring the stream for any sign of an inexplicably rare but pitiful Pokémon. They had been at it for some six hours, Steven trooping bravely up and down the riverbank and fishing from each spot there in turn while Wallace surfed farther afield. They had just converged again within hearing distance, and it seemed that aside from being able to talk to him for the first time in the past two hours, Wallace had also noticed his weary appearance.

Wallace was sitting, almost lounging, on top of his enormous Whiscash, which bobbed up and down in the water gently with an air of serene, obedient calm that Steven couldn't help but envy. Beside his fishing line, Wallace's feet were dangling in the water, a position Steven thought a little unwise in a stream positively brimming with Tentacools and Carvanhas, but Wallace did not seem concerned. As he was the water Pokémon specialist between them, Steven refrained from bringing up his worries and instead kept his focus on the practicals.

“All right, but when it gets dark, I'm going back to town,” he stated uncompromisingly as the other man steered his Whiscash to move closer, trying a new spot with his fishing rod.

“Dark?” Wallace echoed as if the whole concept were alien to him, then shook his head wistfully. “Oh, right. Of course. We can still come back tomorrow...”

 _You'll make me come,_ Steven thought despairingly but didn't dare voice it in case Wallace felt slighted. The truth was, Wallace hadn't _made him_ come today, not exactly. Steven did sympathize with Wallace's impulse to find  a rare Pokémon, not to mention with the whole experience of having a hobby that was frankly incomprehensible to the vast majority of people, and so he had more or less volunteered. Now, however, with Wallace hell bent on spending the entire day and possibly more in this miserable soggy wilderness, Steven found himself wishing he had instead tried to dissuade him from this wild goose (or rather, wild fish) chase from the start. The funniest thing was that Wallace was not only assuming that Steven would keep coming back to help, but also that he would happily give his rare Pokémon to Wallace in the unlikely event he did manage to find one. Granted, Steven had no planned use for a fish on his team, but still...

“They're so underappreciated as well,” Wallace ranted on, clearly oblivious to Steven's dilemma, “have you actually looked at all the Pokédex entries on Feebas? They go on and on about how ugly, weak and ignored they are, as if it wasn't our fault we ignore them in the first place—”

“Um, Wallace,” Steven began, then more forcefully as there was no effect, “Wallace!”

The other man stopped mid-sentence and gave him a quizzical look. “Yes?”

Steven sighed. “Look,” he said to buy himself more time, choosing his next words carefully, “I do admire the effort you're putting into this, but please appreciate that we are looking for a fairly small fish that only lives in one spot in this entire river—”

“It's not just one spot,” Wallace interrupted, clearly determined to keep morale up now that he had noticed Steven's malaise, “really, let's just be patient, it's not as bad as all that. We have to come across it sooner or later.”

Hope flashing, Steven asked despite his better judgement, “How many places does it live in, then?”

“Six.”

Steven groaned.

“I just hope nobody is as foolish as to go changing the saying in Dewford right now...” Wallace murmured, having blissfully missed Steven's response in favour of adjusting his fishing line.

“I'm sure no one would both— what? What has Dewford got to do with anything?”

“And the chance that a Feebas will bite isn't 100% even when we _do_ find the right spot, so make sure you never fish just once at a time...” Wallace continued, now seemingly lost in thought despite h is attempt at making sure Steven still remembered the correct Feebas-hunting procedure. Steven noted the _when_ , not _if_ , and felt like bodily diving into the stream himself to fish this reclusive nuisance out.

As he considered the idea, something tugged at Steven's fishing line, but he, being so distracted by Wallace's puzzling musings and his own growing desperation, only gave a startled yelp before he had the sense to reel the offender in – and by then, it was too late. The bait came up empty.

“Steven! Honestly now! What if that was a Feebas and you let it get away?” Wallace looked pale as he voiced that prospect, patting his hat with one hand exasperatedly, making it appear even more deflated than it already did due to the persistent rain soaking them both.

“It wasn't, don't worry, I – I saw it, okay? A Carvanha fin.”

Steven had, naturally, seen nothing of the sort, not even the nibble that had made his fishing rod quiver for one hopeful moment before leaving nothing but unhelpful stillness in its wake. A remorseful thought came to him: the reluctant tug he had felt might well have been a Feebas at long last, as the pacifist fish seemed much less keen to make contact with humans than the Carvanhas that leapt at every opportunity to tussle with them. A Feebas, by contrast, may have been all the more determined to get away.

Steven kept this line of reasoning to himself as he fished out, metaphorically, another hollow reassurance. “It's all right, Wallace, I'm sure we missed nothing.”

Wallace did not seem convinced but went back to his own line, probably with the conclusion that arguing with the only person willing to assist in his quest would be counterproductive indeed. They fished determinedly some more, until a splash and a shriek of pure delight from Wallace pierced the watery silence.

“Oh my – look! Steven, _look_!”

And there it was – at the end of Wallace's line hung a tattered-looking insipid yellow fish, barely making an attempt to free itself now that Wallace had pulled it out of the comfort of the waves. He reeled the Pokémon into his arms, which were shaking, and hugged it to himself triumphantly. “Yes! Yes, at last!”

Steven didn't know whether to smile or cry with exhaustion, and he wasn't even thinking about the sheer uselessness of his own fishing attempts since Wallace was after all perfectly capable of finding his elusive Feebas unaided. He settled for producing a small sound in the back of his throat and smiling as widely as he could manage, hoping it didn't come off as a grimace. Wallace was so genuinely happy; Steven didn't have the heart to tarnish the moment. The Feebas didn't put up the slightest bit of resistance as Wallace tapped it gently with a Nest Ball, not even bothering to throw it, and the Feebas sank into it with obvious gratitude at the fact that it needed to put up with no more exertion for the time being.

Wallace turned back to Steven, still wearing that exultant look that made it kind of worth all the trouble, particularly with the whole ordeal safely behind them. “Wow,” he said weakly, far from his usual eloquence. “We did it, Steven! We found one!”

“ _You_ did it,” Steven admonished him, but Wallace would hear none of it.

“As if I could have stayed around this long without all the, ah, moral support,” he said with a diplomatic wave of his hand, in which he already held a Contest reference book to check whether his hard-won Feebas would eat certain Pokéblocks. “Fair enough, let's not put up any pretences – your fishing could use a lot of work, but you still kept me company and I just...thank you!”

The Whiscash carrying him on its back floated all the way up to the shore, giving Wallace the opportunity to leap back to land and catch Steven in a bone-crushing hug that no one but Steven knew him to be capable of. When he let go, he appeared a tad unsteady on his feet, as though he had almost forgotten how to walk after all this time of floating along.

“Well, maybe next time you'd like to accompany me to Granite Cave?” Steven replied with a laugh, reaching for Wallace's sodden hat to wring it out for him as they walked towards a distant patch of sunlight.

*

A few days after their adventure, Wallace was doting on his new Feebas – taking it out for regular supervised swims in the crystal-clear lake of Sootopolis (“They only 'live in stagnant ponds with weeds' because no one cares enough to bring them into a healthy environment!”), dutifully growing berries (“I only wish I could get a hold of a Pamtre...”), and at night, letting the Feebas rest in a large specially made aquarium along with Wallace's trusty Luvdisc (“It wouldn't do if another Pokémon went after him outside, now would it? He's still only a baby”). Steven, for his part, was happy that Wallace was finding the care for his new Pokémon so rewarding, and hoped that the next time he brought back a rare stone with commentary that would run for three days straight through every meal, Wallace would show a little more than polite interest now that they both knew what it was like to have a peculiar preoccupation.

To Steven's great satisfaction, Wallace broached the subject himself one evening. The two of them were sitting on the shore of the Sootopolis lake, watching the tranquil surface and talking comfortably while the town emptied of people who, instead of milling about the stone steps as they did during the day, were retreating to their homes. The sun had already set, and as the evening got darker, Steven plopped onto his back in the soft grass to watch the stars light up in the sky, framed by the rim of the volcano. Wallace watched him with amusement for a second before he followed suit, exhaling in contentment.

“I must admit,” Wallace began softly as Steven turned his head to watch his profile, “I haven't been nearly as understanding of your passion for rare stones as you have been of my wish to find that Feebas. So thank you, Steven, again. You really did help, whatever you might be telling yourself that it was all me who managed it.”

Steven had abandoned his attempts to persuade Wallace that it was all his own doing that he now had a not-so-shiny Feebas to look after a few days prior, but the acknowledgement was still nice to hear. “I was happy to help. Well, all right, not so much while it was happening—” Wallace let out a small chuckle beside him “—but the result was worth the trouble. And will be, once you evolve it and everyone will start asking where you could have found such a beautiful, near-unique Pokémon.”

Wallace laughed in earnest at this, the sound carrying well over the smooth surface of the water now that the city streets were deserted. “Do you suppose Route 119 will experience a sudden upswing in tourism when that happens?” he asked in a tone of mock seriousness.

“If you don't decide to keep it a secret, it well might.”

“Nah...” Wallace raised his hands, tracing constellations absently into the sky. “I doubt they'll all succeed anyway, even if they do believe me about the six random spots and the Dewford hall.”

“True, not everyone has your tenacity,” said Steven fondly.

“Or your help,” Wallace countered without missing a beat, sat up, and leaned over Steven to kiss him.

It wasn't really a surprise – they had done this more than enough times to get used to the concept over the past few years – but it was still an enjoyable progression of their meeting and Steven returned the kiss with enthusiasm. Wallace had not brought his weight down on him, though, and when they parted Steven immediately saw why.

“Fancy a little good night swim while we're here?” Wallace asked conversationally as he sat back on his haunches and discarded his hat, soon followed by his unmistakable shirt. “It's not cold – well, not _too_ cold, anyway.”

Steven gave an exasperated nod and followed Wallace's example. They were hardly worried about being seen; there was no one around and they knew from experience that such was usually the case at this hour, so they undressed completely in the summer night. The only thing Steven kept on were his rings. He was careful when he folded his clothes, much more methodical about it than Wallace – because he still had a little present for him in the chest pocket of his shirt, and he could not afford for it to get damaged. While he sorted his possessions, Wallace had already slipped into the lake, scarcely making a splash. Steven was somewhat less elegant when he joined him, but a few moments in the water were enough to drive any inclination to dwell on such comparisons from his mind altogether.

Although the temperature was a little crisp at first, Steven experienced something much more akin to heat at the sight of Wallace swimming towards him from almost the middle of the lake (which was as far as he had made it before he must have heard Steven's body break the surface) and diving underwater right in front of him. Something that felt like Wallace's fringe, unbound and weightless, brushed against him from chest to groin in the water, but moved far too quickly for Steven to consciously touch. Wallace was as graceful in the lake as he was on land – more, perhaps, like some water creature – and he was obviously using it to his fullest advantage to be a tease. An impressively long moment later, Wallace resurfaced a good ten metres behind Steven, taking a great gulp of air before he grinned. Steven followed him, doing his best to match the long efficient strokes that were taking Wallace back towards the bank, towards a spot of tall grass one could grab onto while treading water.

When they regrouped there, it was no use pretending that they were about to go swimming again, or at least not before certain desires were fulfilled. Wallace's face felt hot to the touch as Steven cupped it with one hand and they were kissing again, more urgently than before. While they did so, Steven managed to close in on the other man and snatch handfuls of overgrown grass on either side of Wallace, effectively trapping him against the bank. Wallace laughed a little bit when their kiss ended, aware of his situation and enjoying it all the same. He grabbed onto Steven's shoulders to keep himself upright, then gave up treading water and instead slipped one of his knees between Steven's legs.

Steven moaned in response, couldn't contain it. “Come on,” he managed when Wallace ceased his teasing, but immediately groaned again when the pressure of Wallace's leg between his came back, sliding back and forth this time. “Mmh...let's finish this up there...”

“We should,” Wallace agreed despite his uncannily controlled movements in the water, correctly interpreting the upward tilt of Steven's head as his wish to come ashore. Steven released his hold on the now quite crumpled patches of grass and allowed Wallace the space to turn around and climb out, before he followed him out of the lake. They were among dense thickets now, making it harder to see than out in the open, but as they embraced again, more closely now, Steven had no doubt that Wallace was just as excited as he himself felt.

They swayed together for a while, rubbing against each other while their hands caressed all they could reach, or alternatively tangled in wet hair as they kissed. Then they were on the ground, Wallace pressing a hand against Steven's chest to suggest that he should lie back. Having no objection to the prospect, Steven did so, settling onto the dense grass beneath. Wallace propped himself up over him for another kiss, moved to kiss Steven's neck, then trailed lower over a nipple, lower and down Steven's abdomen...

“Ahh!” Steven arched into Wallace's mouth the moment it closed over his flesh, but Wallace held him down by the hips, maintaining his own pace. His lips were cold, Steven's length was hot, Wallace's tongue was pure fire; Steven threw his head back and moaned without trying to suppress it at all. He found himself spreading his legs wider, even though there was no need since Wallace's head had already sank deeper between them and Steven was now not blaming him at all that he preferred to keep the pace under his control. He sneaked a hand down to Wallace's hair, not to hold him in place or tug him away, but simply to feel the rhythm Wallace had established with his entire body, from his cock to his fingertips.

The pleasure mounted, crested, Wallace pulled back, and Steven's hips bucked off the grass for real into Wallace's hand, which he hadn't even noticed had replaced Wallace's mouth until he was thrusting harshly into it, gasping, knowing Wallace was watching him and loving the fact. They were silent except for two sets of ragged breaths, Steven's decidedly more exhausted, as his orgasm wore itself out and afterglow set in. He was almost sleepy for a moment, before he noticed that Wallace had settled down beside him and felt an arousal that would have been corresponding to his own just a few minutes ago nudge his side.

“Hey,” Steven breathed, sure that Wallace's face was flushed anew, although he couldn't see it. “We've forgotten you...”

It was clear from his voice that Wallace had most certainly _not_ forgotten, but was determined to let Steven enjoy his reverie. “N-never mind, we can later—”

“Hardly fair,” Steven interjected, shuffling onto his side. He gave the palm of his ringed hand a good lick, then wrapped his hand around Wallace's length appreciatively. Wallace, clearly so high strung from holding back all this time that he could no longer put on a brave face, let out an incomprehensible mumble followed by a moan as Steven gave him a long, indulgent stroke.

Then Steven paused briefly, only for as long as it took to feel his way in the near-total darkness so that he could sit astride Wallace's lower thighs. Before he could return his hand where it was so desperately wanted, however, Wallace gripped his wrist – and held his hand with his other, the hand Steven had come all over just moments ago. He felt what was left there of the fluid and understood; when Wallace let go and Steven gripped his shaft once more, Wallace gave an approving sigh and touched his own hand again to Steven's, rubbing the metal of his rings while Steven stroked him, speeding up as Wallace encouraged him to.

It took a very short time for Wallace to reach his limit, and he gasped Steven's name interspersed with broken moans and “yes”es as he rocked into their joined hands; then he lay still, his chest heaving. They cuddled in their makeshift nest of grass for a while, then, finally feeling chilly, decided that enough was enough and they still had to swim to their clothes before they could get home. The water felt ruthlessly cold the second time Steven dipped into it, but he didn't complain – the sight of Wallace coming so thoroughly undone thanks to him was still fresh in his mind, and his whole body thrummed with a pleasant sort of tiredness thanks to the attention Wallace had lavished on _him_. If they ended up doing anything else tonight, it had better be in a warm bed where they could fall asleep right afterwards, not out here.

They dressed lazily, not caring that they were getting their clothes wet for the short trek back to Wallace's house. It was only when Steven buttoned up his shirt that he realized there was something he had meant to give Wallace, and had better give him soon so it was not useless.

“Wallace,” he said, pressing a small object into his palm, “here. I got this for you yesterday. Thought you'd find it more helpful than anyone else right now.”

Wallace squinted in the still considerable darkness, brought the small object in front of his face, felt it with his fingers – and then made an extremely pleased noise as he launched himself onto Steven, hugging him for yet another time.

“Oh, Steven! Thank you so much! A real Pamtre berry, how on earth did you get one?!”

“I...have my ways,” Steven said in what he hoped was a charmingly mysterious voice, because he thought that sounded a whole lot better than “I gave the Berry Master and his wife five nuggets and three big pearls each so that they let me have one from their private stock, just when I asked.” Wallace did not seem very anxious to find out anyway; he had released Steven but still looked as though glowing, as if no more outrageous goodness could fit into this day as far as he was concerned.

“Well, I'm going to plant this little beauty first thing tomorrow...” he intoned reassuringly, taking care not to squash it. And then, as an afterthought, “You wouldn't mind helping me with the gardening a bit, would you?”

_-END-_

**Author's Note:**

> ETA 09/03/2016: The feelings and situations portrayed this fic are legit, but in retrospect I wish I had already realized they didn't "have to" be cis men when I wrote it. If you want to make me happy please also consider reading my never stuff where this isn't an issue. It matters to me. Thank you.


End file.
